Current activities

We are currently organising the following activities:

Poster design by Valeria Tafurt

22 April 2026 - Knowledge for the War Machine?

After successfully concluding the Re-Imagining the University film series as part of the Contesting Governance Platform, the students and staff from Cultural Anthropology and Educational Sciences are proud to announce the upcoming roundtable event: Knowledge from the War Machine? Dr. Lauren Gould (Conflict Studies, Utrecht University) and Mark Akkerman (Stop Wapenhandel), together with other contributors, will engage with the topic of the militarization of our universities. 

For more information, please click here. 

8 May 2026 - Mapping Ecological Violence

The Warfare Ecologies Project, part of Pathways to Sustainability, is organising a two-day workshop in collaboration with the Contesting Governance Platform and Ecologies of Violence. This two-day workshop brings together researchers and members of Forensic Architecture (FA) to explore how FA’s tools, technologies, and investigative approaches can inform and enrich participants’ own research practices. Rather than focusing solely on FA’s casework, the workshop is designed as a space for methodological exchange: how ways of seeing, sensing, mapping, and evidencing ecological violence and harm travel across disciplines and research contexts. 

For more information, please click here.

13 May 2026 - Persecution of Life Defenders in Ecuador

This seminar seeks to critically examine the current situation in Ecuador, particularly the relationship between the expansion of the extractive frontier and government criminalization. The event brings together three Indigenous leaders currently facing persecution and criminalization in Ecuador: Leonidas Iza, former president of CONAIE (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador) and former presidential candidate; Sisa Cotacachi, Indigenous leader from Otavalo, the epicenter of social unrest in the 2025 national protests; and Dario Iza, current president of the Kitu Kara peoples. Together, these three voices will reflect on ongoing struggles, strategies of resistance, and the State–corporate dynamics shaping territorial conflicts around extractive development.

For more information, please click here.

 

Collage of exhibition photographs

18 May 2026 - Exhibition opening: Picturing Scholasticide

Join us on May 18 for the opening of Picturing Scholasticide, a travelling multimodal exhibition on scholasticide the deliberate destruction of educational systems and infrastructures in Gaza. Picturing Scholasticide is a multimodal exhibition initiated by staff and students at Leiden University to make visible the social and legal effects of Israel’s destruction of Palestinian institutions of higher education. Developed in partnership with Palestinian photographers and web designers, the exhibition aims to commemorate, build awareness, and support the rebuilding of education institutions in Gaza and across Palestine.

For more information, please click here.